Kamera o tomeru na! Rimôto daisakusen!

I fondly remember watching One Cut of the Dead for the first time during 2020, when lockdowns were a way of life. It was one of many great movies watched for the first time that year, and then it turns out there's a sequel of sorts that was made in lockdown.

Granted, this follow-up is only a short film, and it naturally doesn't have nearly as much to offer as the original. Instead of being about a zombie movie, it's about the characters making a true-crime documentary (mostly re-enactments) over webcams, all done remotely.

There is some mild comedy from the premise, but it's mostly just valuable as a way to see the gang get back together. The original One Cut of the Dead is wonderful and all the characters in it are so much fun, so any chance to see them again was fun. It is also another effective time capsule of the COVID era, with zoom calls and awkward video chats galore, both professionally and socially. It explores that stuff with a bit more depth late in the short film, and I think that was the strongest and most affecting part.

So I'm probably a bit biased, because this is a weaker effort in every way, even taking into account the limitations of doing things remotely. But that's baked into the whole thing- not as cleverly as the whole structure of One Cut of the Dead, but it was a nice enough short. Hopefully, most other fans of the original would feel the same, even if it's pretty slight overall.